


Fire and its superior Alternatives

by RosesAndFrills



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, HMCWTIYS, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosesAndFrills/pseuds/RosesAndFrills
Summary: As winter comes around after the world didn't end, an angel and a demon realize that maybe they should start to deal with everything that happened during that specific summer week, especially the unfortunate almost-end of one particular bookshop.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27
Collections: USEDTOBEHMC_WRITING_CONTEST





	Fire and its superior Alternatives

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @usedtobehmc's Write This In your Style contest over on instagram. (Go check them out if you haven't yet, they're amazing)
> 
> I've never actually published anything I've written before, but I got inspired and it really is amazing what a deadline can do to my productivity.

When the world didn’t end, summer was still in full swing and Aziraphale and Crowley were happy to continue on with their existences as they had before that rather strange week, the only change being with how often they saw each other, compared to most of their time spent on earth before.

By the time summer changed to autumn, Crowley had finally managed to work up his courage to confess his feelings to Aziraphale, being utterly stunned by the one thing he never dared to hope: Aziraphale reciprocating his feelings. So, while the world changed its colours from soft greens to orange, so also changed the relationship between the two beings.

When the seasons changed again and winter started its frosty reign, another change came for the two of them. They had realized that nothing was keeping them in London anymore, and while they loved the city that was their home for several centuries, both were ready for a change. And so, they experienced the first frost of the year in a little cottage by the seaside, with a library, a plant room for their respective hobbies, and a nice attic and a garden for when the library and plant room would inevitably grow to be too small.

“Angel, I swear to Someone, I’m gonna freeze into a bloody icicle by the time the sun decides to make a comeback.” Crowley had just come inside from the garden, angrily shoving his jacket and scarf onto the coat rack.

“Well, no one is forcing you to go outside in this weather, that was entirely your decision,” Aziraphale remarked after having come out into the hall at his partner’s loud complaints.

“Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta make it clear to those trees what’s expected of them when spring comes around. Can’t have bad fruit in our first year here,” Crowley tried to defend himself.

“Naturally.” A small smile tugged at the angel’s lips at that explanation. “Anyways, we need to get you warmed up, so come on dear.” He put an arm around the demon’s shoulder, steering him towards the sofa before heading for the kitchen to make tea. When he passed the fireplace that they had never actually used before, he stopped for a second, considering, before quickly snapping his fingers and disappearing through the doorway.

Crowley was just about to let himself fall down onto the couch when the fire roared to life, flames licking hungrily at newly conjured pieces of wood and he suddenly found himself unable to move. His eyes fixed on the flames, the cold from the outside was quickly forgotten, now all he could feel was heat. The fire was all around him. He had to run. No, why would he run? He had to get Aziraphale first. Then run. But Aziraphale was gone, wasn’t he? What was he supposed to do now? There was nowhere left to go, no reason to go even if there was.

“Dear?” The angel’s voice reached him as if he was underwater. He slowly turned his head, body still frozen in place. There, the angel was still there, unharmed, and he didn’t look scared, rather...confused? Maybe slightly worried? He held two cups of tea. Slowly, Crowley’s brain caught up with the present again. Aziraphale was fine. They were in their cottage and the fire was harmless, at least for now. Also, Crowley was still objectively cold, even though sweat was now running down his back.

“Are you alright? You’re shivering quite a lot.” He looked down at his hands. Huh, apparently he was. ”I didn’t realize you were that cold. Here, let me get you some blankets.” With that, Aziraphale pressed a teacup into Crowley’s numb hands, the liquid inside sloshing dangerously near the edge from his trembling, and started bustling about in his pursuit of said blankets. Crowley just quickly looked down towards the cup in his hands, before turning his eyes back towards the fire, making sure it wasn’t spreading to the rug, or the mantle, or the furniture. He wasn’t even sure why exactly he was doing that. When enough of his higher brain function was back online, he contemplated just putting it out, but decided that would seem ungrateful, so he didn’t.

Apparently, someone else had the same idea, because suddenly he was staring at an empty fireplace. Confused, he turned to Aziraphale, who had apparently amassed quite the amount of blankets in the meantime, judging by the pile on the sofa.

“What’s wrong, dearest?”

“Huh, what? Nothing’s wrong. Why would anything be wrong?” He started fidgeting with his teacup. Maybe he should take a sip.

“You were staring at the fire for a rather disturbing amount of time without moving. And you were ignoring me in the process.”

“Ngk, yeah, sorry angel, was just enjoying the fire. What did you want?” He noticed with dismay that he was still trembling and tried very hard to stop the tea from making it quite so obvious. Aziraphale just raised an eyebrow at him, looking expectant. “That’s what people do, isn’t it? Enjoying the fire in the fireplace and all that.”

“Yes, but people usually don’t look like they’re about to get hanged while doing that.” 

“You know, being hanged wouldn’t actually be that bad for us, I mean we don’t technically need air, unless of course…” At a pointed look from Aziraphale he quickly shut up. “Yeah, right, not the point.”

“No, my dear. Are you going to tell me what happened there or do you want me to guess?” Crowley really didn’t want Aziraphale to guess, but the angel seemed to take his silence and averted gaze as an invitation, because he continued to talk. “I get the feeling that you’re not all that fond of open fire, because if I know you, and I do know you quite well, that is fear in your eyes. You’re not wearing your sunglasses, you know..”

At that, Crowley quickly snapped his eyes back to the angel’s face, looking perfectly aghast. “Excuse me? Afraid of fire? Me? Why the fuck would I be afraid of fire? I’m a bloody _demon_ , in case you forgot. Fire’s like our thing. I stepped into a pillar of hellfire up in heaven if you remember. Would someone who was afraid of fire be able to do that? No, they wouldn’t because they’d be too busy being afraid to actually do that.” Crowley was rambling. He was aware that he was rambling, that didn’t help him to stop though. Aziraphale, for his part, just looked at him with a look of endless patience, as if he was waiting for Crowley to finish to calmly explain to him how stupid he was being. That prospect at last was too much for the demon and he stormed out of the room, slamming his teacup down on the coffee table. He made his way into their bedroom to throw himself on the bed and bury his face in the pillows. Great, now he was sulking. He was really starting to hate this day. He decided it was for the best to just fall asleep, start again in the morning and try to not fuck it up again.

When he woke up he quickly realized that he had not been successful in making it till morning, as it was dark outside and a quick glance to the clock told him it was just past nine. He was determined to just start a second try when he noticed Aziraphale in the doorway, his quiet worry apparently strong enough to have woken his partner. He also noticed that he was significantly warmer now, attributing it to the heated blanket that had apparently been draped over him somewhere along the way.

“How are you feeling?” The angel was fidgeting with the bottom of his waistcoat, not quite meeting Crowley’s eyes,

“Ugh, fine, warmer, was just tired, sorry ‘bout storming off and all that.” He waved his hand about in the air, the other arm thrown over his eyes.

“Oh well, that’s quite alright,” he paused as if to consider something, “would you like to join me downstairs then? I could read to you again if you’d like.” Now that was a blatant attempt at manipulating him that Crowley could see right through. Unfortunately, it also worked quite well, so he just groaned and swung himself out of the bed.

“Fine. Meet you there.” With that he walked past Aziraphale and towards the living room, stopping short when he reached the door. From inside, warm orange light streamed out into the hallway, flickering lightly. He couldn’t hear fire. Or smell it. But he was still rather sure that the fireplace was lit again. Now, he wasn’t going to admit to Aziraphale that the fire had affected him. Or to himself, for that matter. But he still wasn’t in any mood to go in there after that afternoon. No reason at all. He was just tired.

He wanted to turn and head back to the bedroom, maybe sleep until winter was over and fireplaces would be absolutely useless, but he was brought up short by Aziraphale’s hand around his own.

“I wanted to show you something. See, I went into town while you were asleep and I found this very interesting contraption that I thought you might like.” As mentioned before, Crowley was vehemently avoiding admitting to anything and now he also found himself curious. On top of that, Aziraphale was making puppy-eyes at him, so really he had already lost. He let himself be dragged into the room, trying to mask his reluctance as sleepiness.

When Aziraphale turned them to the fireplace, he did not expect to be faced with a little heater lodged into it instead of wood, a screen on the front displaying an admittedly awful rendition of what was supposedly fire that looked more like orange blobs dancing about, spewing out smaller orange blobs than actual flames. This was obviously where the light he had seen in the hall came from.

He started laughing, stepping in front of Aziraphale to kiss him. He was too relieved to remember to pretend not to care. “This is the ugliest fire I have ever seen,” he said with a little chuckle when stopping for breath. At the angel’s annoyed huff he quickly continued, “I love it. Now how about that reading you promised me?”

Aziraphale looked like he wanted to say something, but seemed to think better of it. They went to make themselves comfortable on the sofa, Crowley wrapped up tightly in a blanket, leaning against the angel’s side, waiting for him to start reading to forget about the whole thing. To his dismay, the book stayed closed.

“We should talk,” Aziraphale finally started after a rather long silence, “about what happened earlier I mean.”

“Nothing happened. Already said, was tired, got lost in thought a bit.”

“And almost running away again just now?” Crowley just buried his head in the angel’s shoulder in response. “Please, just talk to me darling, I want to help you, but I need to know how.” They fell into silence again, before Crowley mustered up the courage to speak.

“It’s stupid, I just suddenly remembered the bookshop. During the apocalypse, when it burned down, you know. I just thought I’d lost you again, which is silly, I mean you were just in the other room and nothing was actually on fire, well apart from a bit of wood and I don’t know what happened. Stupid, like I said.” After having worked up the energy for all that, Crowley felt thoroughly exhausted. 

Suddenly, he felt Aziraphale’s arms around him, holding him, then pulling him up and onto his lap, where he just held him close to his chest for a moment before answering. “It’s not stupid at all my dear.” He paused again. “I feel I must apologize.” When Crowley opened his mouth to protest, he quickly continued. “No, let me finish. For me, that whole fire was a rather unreal event, being undone before I even saw the bookshop again, so I never stopped to consider how it must have affected you, even with the state you were in when I found you. It’s just natural you’d hold some trauma from that.”

“I’m a demon, we don’t get _trauma._ ” He tried to spit the last word but the effect was rather ruined by the fact that all his words were muffled against the angel’s sweater. “Would be pretty counterproductive in hell.”

“That’s nonsense and you know it. I rather think it would maybe be best for you if you stopped running from it and allowed yourself to get some help instead, not that I want to force you of course, it’s just an idea.” At that, Crowley managed to sit up just enough to give Aziraphale an incredulous look.

“Are you seriously suggesting I go to _therapy_? Really?”

“Well, it can be quite helpful, you know, I read that…” He was interrupted by the demon in his lap groaning exasperatedly.

“I’d rather you start reading that book you're holding now. You promised after all.”

“Of course, I just thought we should talk…” He once again didn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, I promise we’ll talk about whatever you want _properly_ tomorrow. I need some time to think first. So can we please stop now? This is exhausting.”

“Whatever you need, my dear.” With that, Aziraphale pressed a short kiss to the top of Crowley’s head and opened the book, prepared to read until the demon fell asleep again, curled up in his arms, warmed by the ugly heater in the fireplace.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so English is not my first language so if I've made some mistakes that make your head hurt, don't hesitate to yell at me.


End file.
